STUDIES ON URANIUM RECOVERY BY ACTIVATED CARBON IMPREGNATED WITH TRIDODECYLAMINE AND TRIBUTYL PHOSPHATE

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Nuclear Materials Authority,Cairo, Egypt

2 El Azhar University (Girls)

Abstract

Two solvent impregnated activated carbon materials were prepared for uranium recovery from its
aqueous sulfate solutions using tridodecylamine (TDA) and tributyl phosphate (TBP). This was achieved
by direct adsorption of each extractant onto the solid phase (dry method). The obtained adsorbents
demonstrated that the loading capacity of TDA and TBP have attained 0.69g and 0.85g per 1g activated
carbon (AC) respectively which were characterized by means of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)
and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). For the two materials, the relevant factors such as
contact time, solution pH, initial uranium ion concentration, volume of aqueous solution to the weight of
the impregnated activated carbon ratio and the extraction temperature were optimized by equilibrium batch
experiments using uranium synthetic sulfate solution. The obtained uranium loaded from the latter on 1g
of each of TDA-AC and TBP-AC was 45mg and 89mg respectively. Desorption of the loaded uranium
was carried out using hydrochloric acid which was found to be 66% for TDA-AC and 93.5% for TBPAC
respectively. Based on the obtained optimum factors, the practical applicability of the two developed
impregnated solid phases was then examined upon a uranium sulfate leach liquor prepared from Abu
Zeneima uraniferous mineralization.

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics